UK proposes imposing sanctions on Iran after Rushdie attack

Britain should designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation following the brutal attack on Sir Salman Rushdie, Rishi Sunak has said, as he warned that the stabbing should be a “wake-up call for the West”.

The former chancellor said Iran’s response to the stabbing bolstered the case for proscribing Tehran’s elite military unit, which acts as a protection force against the regime, The Telegraph informs.

He also suggested that the nuclear deal that lifted sanctions against Iran could have reached “a dead end”.

Mr Sunak’s intervention came after Iranian politicians and media celebrated the attack on the 75-year-old writer in the United States.

Rushdie was on August 14 taken off a ventilator and is able to talk.

The suspect, Hadi Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, was on August 13 charged with attempted murder and assault and remanded without bail.

Mr Matar entered a plea of not guilty in a New York court on August 14. He appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, while his hands were cuffed in front of him.